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There’s been so many things going on in my life, one of them was participating in #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again this year and I won…Yay!

While I was in the middle of writing for #NaNoWriMo, I had an idea. Since I make Inspiration Boards and Mood Boards for my books, why not make Pottery Inspiration Boards. So, right after I finished NaNo, I started making them. I really needed a break from writing and my story needs to simmer for a while anyway.

It’s been so much fun making these

This is the first one I made.

I can’t even tell you how much I miss making pottery, but more about that later.

I can’t wait, until I can feel clay in hands again, feel it squish through my fingers when I throw, I even miss the way it smells.

I’m not sure If I’ll continue with this Dinnerware Collection? I haven’t decided yet. I do know that since moving to Arizona, my work is heading in a different direction.

Lake House is one of my designs that I will continue to make.

Backwater Bay is another design I will continue to make. It’s my favorite.

Since my workshop is closed for a while, I decided to catch up on some blog posts I’ve been wanting to do and never really had the time for. This is an updated post from my old blog on Blogspot. This is how I use to take my photos. Not sure if this will be how I take photos in the future though, when I have a new workshop.

It all depends on how much natural light I’ll have.

Before I opened my Etsy Shop, six years ago. I purchased these lamps, and a light tent. I think I only used the light tent, once or twice…I hated it! It was a big waste of money. It just takes up room in my garage now.

Then I purchased a varitone graduated backdrop #09. It was better than the light tent, but I wasn’t happy with the dark background. So, I purchased a gray graduated backdrop #28. I was really hoping that the light gray one, would be better…but it wasn’t!

This is one of my first photos with the dark varitone backdrop.

So, after spending all that money, and not being happy with the results,

I came up with my own backdrop, and it didn’t cost very much.

Actually, I don’t think I spent any money, because I already had everything I needed.

I cut up two (free) priority mail boxes from the Post Office…the large ones.

I taped them together with shipping tape, and made flaps on the ends,

so it could stand. Then I covered the spaces that light would shine through,

with small pieces of white card stock that I had lying around, and then taped

the card stock to my new backdrop with shipping tape…on the front and back.

When my homemade backdrop was finished, I taped a sheet of white poster board to it, to cover up the print. I taped it at the top only. Then, I remembered that I had a piece of foam core board, so I dug it out of my closet, and placed it in front of the backdrop, on top of my workbench. Once that was done, I used another sheet of white poster board and tapped it over the first one…about half way down the sheet, with some scotch tape, and then draped it over the foam core board. This was exactly what I was looking for…a white backdrop.

Then I set up my lamps, one on top of my workbench, and two on the floor.

Sorry about the mess, my workshop was very messy when I took these photos.

I don’t have an expensive camera…not yet anyway. Hopefully someday I will. But you can still have great looking photos, even if you don’t have a really good camera. My camera doesn’t have white balance, or anything fancy, so I have to edit my photos. Even though I’m using white poster board and lamps, the photos still come out dark and kind of gray.

Oh, by the way…I don’t use the flash on my camera.

After I take my photos, I go to picmonkey.com and edit them.

It’s free, but you can upgrade for just $4.99 a month…it’s well worth it!

This is what my photo looks like after editing and cropping it on picmonkey.com

Now, this is much better. Yay!

Here’s what I do…

I go to picmonkey.com click on edit a photo, and select the photo I want to edit.

Then I click on exposure, I slide the highlights bar over to where it looks good,

then I slide the shadows bar to where I think it should be and click apply.

Just play with it, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. It’s really easy.

Once I do that, I go to the icons on the left…the second one down is the effects icon. Click on it, then scroll down until you see frost, click on it and apply. You can lighten up your photo with frost as many times as it takes, to get it the way you want. Then go back to the icons on the left, and click on the first icon…basic edits. Now depending on what I want to do with my photo, I’ll either click on crop,

and crop my photo, or I’ll click on sharpen and then crop. When I click on sharpen, I slide over the sharpness bar, usually about 20%, and click apply. Then I slide over the clarity bar, usually about 20% and click apply. Just play with it and have fun!

If you don’t already know about my workshop situation, I’ll give you a brief update. When I starting packing to move from Florida to Arizona. I thought I was only going to take a little time off to work on my book. But, due to things beyond my control…my workshop is closed until I can either fix my kiln or replace it.

My beloved Charlotte (my kiln) was damaged during the move, by the movers and they won’t pay for it. They told my husband to sue them. I won’t use them again!

I really hope that we can fix her!

So, since my workshop is closed, no kiln…no pottery!!! I’ll keep my pottery blog going with posts I didn’t get around to doing, posts from my old pottery blog, new designs from my sketchbook and whatever else I can think of.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to re-size some of my photos…to Pinterest size. Now they look so much better on Pinterest.

I miss working with clay!

My hands are itching to dig into a bag of clay and make something new.

This wire is the original wire I purchased for my first pottery class in 1990. I purchased another one, but I still use my old one. These are some of my original tools from 1990 and holding my tools is a cup I made in 1991.

When Aftosa contacted me in January, they asked for 8 photos and a short bio. It took me a while to narrow down the photos to just 8. I make so many different items and I have tons of photos. So, it wasn’t easy. After emailing back and forth, I found out that they actually, only pick 4 photos. So, I had no idea which photos they would pick.

Here are the 8 photos I sent them

These were my top four

I was hoping they would pick Backwater Bay for the first photo. I love that dinnerware. But they picked my butterfly ring bowl, which actually made me very happy because it features my pottery and my husband’s…grandmother’s Portuguese Lace (Palmeida’s Lace)